Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and two other senators on Wednesday blasted the makers of "Zero Dark Thirty," a depiction of the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, was joined by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz.

The lawmakers sent a letter to Sony Pictures Entertainment, the studio distributing the movie, which has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, including best picture. It will be released in California in January.

Sony Pictures Entertainment did not immediately respond to the letter.

Feinstein, McCain and Levin called the film "grossly inaccurate and misleading" in its graphic scenes showing CIA officers torturing detainees. They said the film appears to credit the detainees with "providing critical lead information" that led Navy SEALs to the bin Laden compound in Pakistan last year.

"We understand that the film is fiction, but it opens with the words 'based on first-hand accounts of actual events' and there has been significant media coverage of the CIA's cooperation with the screenwriters," the letter said.

The movie "clearly implies that the CIA's coercive interrogation techniques were effective in eliciting important information related to a courier for Usama Bin Laden," the letter added. "We have reviewed CIA records and know that this is incorrect."

"Zero Dark Thirty is factually inaccurate, and we believe that you have an obligation to state that the role of torture in the hunt for Usama Bin Laden is not based on the facts, but rather part of the film's fictional narrative," the letter said.

"The use of torture should be banished from serious public discourse for these reasons alone, but more importantly, because it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, because it is an affront to America's national honor, and because it is wrong," the letter added. "The use of torture in the fight against terrorism did severe damage to America's values and standing that cannot be justified or expunged.

"We cannot afford to go back to these dark times," the lawmakers wrote, "and with the release of Zero Dark Thirty, the filmmakers and your production studio are perpetuating the myth that torture is effective. You have a social and moral obligation to get the facts right."